Book and podcast reviews, museum exhibitions and anything else that springs to mind.

Author: philipcoulter

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it on here, but my degree was in Particle Physics. You start to pick up the big names (if you didn’t know them already) as you learn the subject – Steven Weinberg is one such name. His work on electroweak unification was a major part of the course.

You also start to pick up the details of previous experiments. In my era, with the Large Hadron Collider just starting to take data, the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) came up now and then. This experiment that never was, was cancelled in 1993 due to budget problems. It would have reached energies well beyond that of the LHC.

In 1992 Weinberg released this book, describing why he believed that a “final” theory of fundamental physics would exist, what it could look like, and justifying the funding of the SSC. Although he did not win the debate on funding, the arguments in the book still stand – it’s surprising how up to date the book seems. In the last 25 years, we have discovered the Top quark, flavour changes in neutrinos, the Higgs Boson, gravity waves, and pushes into the limits of Supersymmetry and Dark Matter. Yet still something more is needed.

Weinberg’s arguments on the importance of spending on fundamental science, and on his field as the most fundamental of sciences, may not land for everyone, but he places them eloquently and (relatively) diplomatically. His discussion on realism vs positivism is very interesting, it filled in some of the gaps from my very experimentally focused degree. If you’ve ever heard someone refer to a theory as “beautiful”, this is as good a place as any to get an explanation of what they mean and why this matters.

After writing this I found another recent review of it in the Guardian. From the early days of the LHC, but I think it too is still very valid. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/jul/08/dreams-final-theory-weinberg-review

This book, from 2011, tries to give a sense of what life was like for non-elite Romans: the poor, slaves, freedmen (outside the high profile imperial ones), soldiers, prostitutes, gladiators, bandits, and just ordinary men and women. The sources here aren’t as dramatic as those for the trials and tribulations of the imperial family or high ranking senators. There is a lot of reading between the lines in literature (Apuleius’ The Golden Ass and Petronius’ Satyricon for instance), more esoteric works (Artemidorus’s dream interpretations) or funerary inscriptions.

This meant that it ended up covering similar ground with other books I have read recently – Jerry Toner’s How To Manage Your Slaves (which I was sure I had posted on – that may have to be written), Mary Beard’s Laughter in Ancient Rome, Jerry Toner’s Popular Culture in Ancient Rome, and Robin Lane Fox’s Pagans and Christians. With this, the sections on “ordinary men” and slaves in particular rehashed a things I had already read. The other books mentioned above have greater depth to them, and weaved the ideas and quotations into greater themes. In comparison this book had a wider range, but skipped through each topic rather quickly.

Some of the chapters on society’s fringe groups were more interesting for me – much of the material on soldier, prostitutes and gladiators was new to me. Again, it was rather dry compared to some other authors – the material is set out there and the reader is often left to come to their own impressions and conclusions. This does have its advantages, being allowed to actually read through selected portions of the sources is rather nice. There are interesting discussions on how to judge material based on its intended audience, especially on topics like sexuality or societal roles.

As with many of the other books mentioned, there are generalisations here – material is taken from across the span of the empire – in both time and space. Often from 1st and 2nd century Rome or Greece, but also from Egypt or Palestine (the bible does pop up as an occasional source). This is understandable.

Overall, it’s a very well put together work. It’s probably more informative than enjoyable, but it is definitely an accessible and extensive introduction to an area that is only starting to come under the spotlight.

This book isn’t exactly about Dimitri Mendeleyev, he only shows up 260 pages into a 295 page book, but there’s the old line “standing on the shoulders of giants”. This is about the slow process the chemistry went through to develop from the rather haphazard work of the ancient Greeks and Egyptians to the modern science that it became with Mendeleyev’s Periodic Table.

For the most part, the book is full of tales of the various personalities that paved the way for Mendeleyev. Big names like Issac Newton, Francis Bacon and Antoine Lavoisier are covered, as are lesser known figures like the unlucky Carl Scheele or the disreputable Johann Becher. The first half of the book switches between a history of alchemy and a history of empirical science in general, as it needs to. The later chapters focus more and more on chemistry, and particularly that which led towards the understanding of elements.

It’s a fairly light book, but Strathern does find time to weigh in with opinions – on the views of male scientists that kept it a boy’s club for so long, and on people who either had the right approach but wrong answer or vice versa. This second point could have had more made of it – it is acknowledged that even good scientists will hold to their beliefs or opinions (Priestly and others trying to hold onto their theories about Phlogiston after Lavoisier’s identification of Oxygen) but it doesn’t really interrupt the sense of progress.

My only real disappointment with the book is the ending point. Other than a brief comment on the success of the periodic table in the future, the book cuts out at Mendeleyev’s peak. For what is basically a general history of chemistry, it would be nice to see where the subject went in its mature form.

I am slowly trying to make my way through some of the old Greek and Roman sources. Juvenal isn’t exactly a historian, but I decided to try my luck with him. Some of the lines are famous:

“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” – Who guards the guards themselves?

“panem et circenses” – Bread and circuses.

“Mens sana in corpore sano” – a healthy mind in a healthy body

It all seems so high brow! I wasn’t really expecting the constant stream of sexual insults that fills up the rest of it. He does tackle big issues: poverty, morality, immigration (he’s not a fan of Greeks), wealth and class; but he doesn’t pull many punches. Some of the homophobic bits in there are particularly shocking (and intended to be so). It’s actually quite an enjoyable read (I have Peter Green’s translation for Penguin Classics) but probably not for the fainthearted.

I couldn’t help but compare this book to Robert Fisk’s epic The Great War For Civilisation. James Barr’s book covers the conflict in the Middle East from the Anglo-French meetings in the first world war up to Israeli independence in 1948. Fisk’s book featured his experiences of the Russian and American wars in Afghanistan, the Gulf War, Iraq, the Algerian civil war, Israel, Syria, and whatever bits of Lebanon that didn’t make it into his previous book, Pity the Nation.

Fisk’s book is much more personal. There may be flaws or mistakes, but he is passionate, opinionated, and well informed. It is a devastating read in places. A chapter into his father’s experience with a firing squad in World War One provides context. Jumping from the Armenian Genocide, to torture in Algeria and then to his own investigations into arms manufacturers – it’s not a light read. It is however very, very engrossing.

James Barr’s book has a lighter tone (most things would in comparison to Fisk) and a tendency to focus on historical character, with the distance that seventy plus years can give. It reads like a disaster slow unfolding (especially since we know the current state of things), but there are easier moments (the eccentricities of Orde Wingate or the adventures of T.E Lawrence). Both books have a running theme of mismanagement from the western powers – uninformed decisions, petty diplomacy and careerist politicians and bureaucrats who have landed the role and can’t wait to leave (mixed with the occasional maverick fighting for their own pet cause).

The distance makes Line In The Sand an easier read, and it may have been easier for Barr to write, but ultimately it is a sad prequel to the modern situation in the region. Both books are well written and even handed accounts of the 20th (and 21st) century history of the region, and definitely worth reading.

I first heard of this book around fifteen years ago on Channel 4’s Football Italia. It had nothing to do with the former Watford and A.C Milan striker, but in the UK that connection did get it in the media as a bizarre “and finally” style story. This Luther Blissett is (or was) a collective of Italian anarchist writers who used the name as a anonymous group nom de plume for their works (“Anyone can be Luther Blissett simply by adopting the name Luther Blissett”).

The premise of the book, however, did interest me. The Reformation. Revolting Peasants. Prophetic Anabaptist preachers. Scheming bankers. The intrigue of the medieval catholic church. Much of this is not fiction – the book follows a character through the German Peasants’ War, the Munster Rebellion, and fringe groups of the reformation in Antwerp and Venice. He changes his name several times and, perhaps, becomes harder and more cynical.

These changes do feel natural. Although the chapters are short and the book skips quickly through its thirty year time span, the character and his path are shown, not told. Life as a protestant radical is given the feeling of a left wing political movement, an anarchist protest, or occasionally a football crowd. The atmosphere of the book throughout the Munster rebellion is fantastic with hope for a brighter future drifting into despair and terror as Jan Matthys finally arrives.

At times the blending of anti-capitalism and religion is a little heavy handed. I felt that Imprimatur by Monaldi & Sorti (another Italian novel from the same time) featured the murky dealings of the church’s agents with more subtlety. I wouldn’t hold that against it, it feels very suited to the radical hero of the book. The final showdown with Q, a papal spy and the main antagonist, feels like a little bit of an anti-climax; but I suspect that was only because the journey to that point was so enjoyable.

The authors behind Luther Blissett have since changed their name to Wu Ming, and I look forward to reading more of their work!

I’m never sure about getting books by Juliet Barker. Bernard Cornwell recommended her book on Agincourt quite highly, so I obviously began by buying the sequel, Conquest, about the English ruled land in France in the decades after the battle. This wasn’t a glamorous book – England falls, France rises and the kingdom stutters to an ignominious defeat. Barker showed a great head for numbers – money and men were thrown at the kingdom, but never as much as was needed.

Agincourt was a more heroic book, but again Barker carefully separated the myth and the fact, and fleshed out the war with logistics and figures. The attention to detail was interesting to read, but at times hard to push through – although she kept both books fairly concise, they do not feel like a light read.

England, Arise (from 2014), her take on the 1381 “Peasants’ Revolt”, fills a similar role. The myth is one of John Ball, Wat Tyler, Jack Straw and a proto-protestant, proto-communist revolt by the oppressed masses. As ever, it is more complicated than that.

The background to the trouble was one of financial trouble for the kingdom, as it struggled to pay for faltering wars in France – Barker has tread similar ground before, but here she gets to show the effect on the people. In the aftermath of the plague, wages should have increased (and informally did) but this was opposed by restrictive laws and taxes. Corruption was rife. A series of taxes were imposed in an attempt to raise money to continue the wars abroad, but bad organisation and a young king led to increasing resentment against the aristocrats and bureaucrats.

This eventually spilled over into what Barker concludes was a co-ordinated and organised uprising by the men of Kent and Essex, beginning in Brentwood (now better known for TOWIE). There was not a wholesale slaughter, the targets were focussed – officials or landowners seen as greedy or corrupt. In many cases the rebels simply went after the documentation, in an attempt to revoke land grabs or unfair dealings. There was looting of course, but this was no out of control mob.

The young king Richard II met the rebellion and promptly agreed to all their demands, giving them encouragement to continue doing what they believed was the king’s work. He changed his mind some time later, while safely out of harms way. Barker concludes though that his sympathies may have lay closer to the rebels than often portrayed. The revocation came late and only under the direction of his council – this forced retreat may have helped form his later hostility to much of the aristocracy.

The other big names of 1381 play only small roles here. Little is known about Tyler, and less about Jack Straw. John Ball is present, but the best known parts are made up, and the role of religion in the uprising may be overstated by sources later trying to discredit the rebels and religious factions like the Lollards – John Wycliffe, the influential founder of this movement, disapproved of the revolt and was closely linked to many of its targets.

Like her other books, this is an authoritative and detailed account – but sometimes a bit too detailed, and it is easy to get lost in anecdotes or sidetracks about medieval customs and culture. The lack of myth and legend is justified throughout, but does feel a little disappointing – it never really sparks to life. It does, however, probably leave me better prepared to go and read some trashy Hollywood version with all the great speeches and quotes reinserted!

As I often do, I skipped the preface to this book and went straight into the main text. Because of that, it was only about half way through that I realised Neil Faulkner was a Marxist – all the references to class war finally started to make sense.

In this book, actually charting the whole history of the Romans in Britain, this approach has advantages and disadvantages. Roman society was undeniably full of inequality and, in an otherwise dry book, Faulkner does succeed in bringing that to life. His descriptions of the settlements, showing the disparity in wealth, are bolstered by plenty of archaeological evidence. His explanation of the effects of Diocletian’s economic reforms is much more vivid that I’d thought the history of taxation could be.

On the downside, his conclusion, that the end of Roman Britain would let a peasant revolt kick out the landlords and live a brief but ideal agrarian society before the Saxon warlords moved in, comes across as far fetched and lacking any real basis to back it up. His descriptions of the Roman empire outside of Britain are short and one-sided, mostly existing to show either Britain’s role in the empire or the inequality in the system.

I’m not as well read on Roman Britain as I should be, but this stands as an interesting if occasionally uneven take on that particular fringe of the Empire. Worth reading, but perhaps best balanced with an alternative point of view.

I picked this up from my local library recently for a holiday to Berlin. As it turns out, there’s maybe not a whole lot of relevancy for such a city break – Berlin has been so rebuilt from the time of old Prussia in both physical form and outlook; and, in any case, the history of Prussia was always dominated by the fringes. The eastern Dukedom that provided the name and the old military Junker families is now back in Polish hands, and the rest of German has found an easier, less Prussian, form of German unification. It was however a fascinating book.

With the reputation that Prussian has, I was expecting fairly blunt military history but Clark delicately covers the social, religious and economic aspects of history too. We don’t just get the monarchs (inevitably called either William or Frederick, sometimes both) and the aristocrats, but also the working people – both native Prussians and minorities, often Polish or Jewish. Packing all this in, the book is a big one. It is not, however, heavy going – Clark writes accessibly, even on the more difficult topics.

As Prussia forms and leads a unified Germany, the book could become more of a standard history of the World Wars. Thankfully, Clark finds his own angle on this. Alongside the main narrative of the rise of the Nazi Party, for instance, we see the Prussian state dominated by the Social Democrats. Throughout the book, there were a lit of similar bits, previously unknown to me, that came together to help explain the path that Prussia took through history. It may not have quite been the perfect holiday book, but I really enjoyed this.

I’m a big fan of Tom Holland. His book Rubicon (following after Robert Harris’ Cicero series) was a large part of what got me back into reading about history. I was a bit surprised then to find this book in the library, having managed to completely miss it. Part of the Penguin Monarchs series, it’s a beautifully presented hard-back book of only 90 or so pages.

The book is largely a discussion of the work that Athelstan (king 924 to 939) did to unify the Anglo-Saxon and Viking kingdoms into a single English kingdom. As such it starts from the roots of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia, and it is surprisingly far through the book before Athelstan rears his head. As the book concludes this pacing makes sense; although the existence of a single English kingdom seems simple now, it is something that was never inevitable and often a struggle. This wasn’t concluded in one generation, it was the culmination of work by Athelstan’s predecessors – Edward the Elder and Alfred the Great. All three of these kings struggled with succession, other brothers and cousins laid strong claims to the Kingdom or parts thereof. The single English kingdom could have easily fragmented before it was even born.

Also facing this was the idea of Britain as a whole: the Scots had the kingdom of Alba, a gaelic term referring to the whole island; while the Welsh had prophecies about their reclaiming their old lands across the island. After wars in Scotland, Athelstan was proclaimed “rex totius Britanniae”, King of all Britain, in addition to his title “Rex Anglorum”, King of England. One of these would stick and one would not. As England formed as a single entity, so would Scotland and Wales.

Athelstan is often left as a postscript to the story of King Alfred. It’s good to see him and his achievements presented and discussed in this way, as a crucial period in shaping Britain.